Contrarian Carter’s Confounding Confabs

The New York Times has a pretty lame article today…After a half-column litany of the promising promises Carter extracted from so-called intractable Arab foes–Syria, Hamas–to accept a Palestinian “state” as dictated by Israel so long as Palestinians agreed in a referendum, and to quickly come to a peace deal with Israel, the NYT has this to say:

“Given the the general pessimism surrounding Israeli-Arab peace, Mr. Carter’s upbeat assessment had a contrarian quality to it, as did his decision to meet in Damascus with President Bashar el-Assad of Syria and the Hamas leadership.”

Yes, that contrarian Carter, going against the grain by actually talking with the “other side” of an on-going conflict. What will he think of next?